Transfiguration

Two feet apart, straight-limbed on the heathered hill We lie, under the wavering haze Of the sun, even as two logs that lie still In the heart of a blaze. Side by side we lie through the long Late noon together; On us the light wind stoops his strong, Hot, sweet scents of heather. No word breaks the air that smothers, Lest we miss The dull heart-beat of the earth below each other's, And the soft kiss Of breathless heather upon heather, while the sun Beats on us encouraging the swiftening blood, Till up the limbs and through the ears it run, A thin, red singing flood.

Love hath put in me might, That was so weak; I am strong with light, My senses seek Something indefinable, afar; They go wandering, and return.... With the light drunk off a star They calmly burn, Even as the immense sun burns on us Till evening turns watery those beams of his; And, rising from that joyance onerous, I stoop a kiss Lighter than the balls of fluff The wind sways across the heath, Though each invisible, hot puff Scarce rocks a spray beneath.

I sit, and it is so still, Now wind and sun have gone home, I can almost hear distil The dew in the gloam. And from the clear and cool Of the twilit air, That is still as a pool Iced over and bare, I catch at length The thought I have been searching for: Did I absorb the sun's or just your strength, Or Something More?

Summer, 1914.